Failed by the PPP, Kathore’s residents now look up to Arbab Ghulam Rahim

Rahim had cancelled a summary sent to him for building a naval housing scheme on the land in 2007.

KARACHI:

For over three decades, people of Gadap Town have walked miles on foot from their villages to vote for Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Like thousands of other PPP supporters in rural Sindh, they too recall Benazir Bhutto with reverence. But all that might change.

Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah’s decision to allot 8,000 acres of land to DHA in Kathore and Boil dehs, including the ancestral and agricultural lands of its voters, has pushed down PPP’s popularity graph.

According to Muhammad Azeem Kachelo, an area leader of the PPP, the party has 10,000 guaranteed voters in the area. The farmers and shepherds have not been the party’s strength only in Gadap but also in Malir, which is otherwise divided on ethnic and sectarian lines.

“And we are being displaced in return?” He says he approached everyone from PPP MPA Sajid Jokhio and MNA Sher Muhammad Baloch – and all of them said that they couldn’t do anything. “They say their hands are tied,” Azeem said while laughing. “Everyone is helpless when it comes to helping the voiceless.”

But it has also done something else, which was unthinkable till only three months ago. They have now grown to respect former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim.

“We used to hate Arbab Ghulam Rahim. I used to call him a black crow,” says Muhammad Ali Kachelo. “But I respect him for what he did for the Sindhis.”

He was referring to Rahim’s move of cancelling a summary sent to him for building a naval housing scheme on the land in 2007. This move, whose significance even Rahim was unaware of then, has raised his stature in residents’ eyes.

Another local of Kathore, Ahmed Khan, thanked him for saving the indigenous people from displacement. But he also had a prayer on the side. “I just hope PPP realizes what it’s doing.”

AS for Arbab Ghulam Rahim, he is overwhelmed by the support. “The navy did approach me. I am not against development but the locals have to be compensated fairly,” he told The Express Tribune on the telephone. He said that Karachi does need to be expanded. “Indeed, we need developers like the DHA. There is no other option. But the people can’t be displaced without giving them anything in return.”

Referring to sacking of revenue minister Imtiaz Sheikh, who was from his party – Pakistan Muslim League-Likeminded, Arbab said: “Manipulating the land record is very easy and very lucrative in Karachi. But I investigated the matter and removed him once he was found guilty.”

As DHA surveys the land before beginning construction, PPP MPA Sajid Jokhio warned that the party will lose its historic support among the people. “I am going to the courts with the local people anyway,” he said. “That’s the only way to fight it out.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2012.